It was such a surprising moment to be honored at Dance/USA a few weeks ago. Jawole Zollar’s introduction was in itself an honor, and it was a great pleasure to see so many colleagues all in one place. After giving my “speech” I sat down and then immediately realized what I had forgotten to say.

So I am saying it now.

I wanted to talk about developing laboratories that allow us to make mistakes, grow, over reach, try again. I had mine at the Dance Exchange. I was so lucky to come of age when starting a non-profit was relatively easy – there weren’t so many rules. I was lucky enough to have a steady stream of wonderful curious performers, teachers, administrators and partners who came to the organization and might have stayed a few months or many years. Each person helped me carve out who I was and what I believed in. And then, almost three years ago, I left it in the hands of a remarkable group of artists and managers led by the amazing Cassie Meador. They are busy remaking everything, as they should. And I am busy discovering myself as an individual again. Which is a fine thing to do at my age.

I wish I had said all of this in Minneapolis, but I didn’t, so I’m saying it now. I was thinking it all along … and now others can hear it too.

This essay is an excerpt from the upcoming paperback edition of my book of essays, Hiking the Horizontal

As I advance through my sixties, people are curious about my experience now that I am reaching the age of many of the older dancers with whom I’ve worked over the course of my career. I am curious too.

Sometimes I step off a curb and I think I am leaping again.

Sometimes when I picture my back curving it feels like I am dancing at summer camp.

Occasionally, if I put on the right shoes (for some reason mostly the plastic jellies), I can walk at a certain pace and put pressure on the ground in a certain way, and I really believe I can do all those steps and figures and phrases I used to do.

Or if I am in rehearsal and see an opportunity in front of me, a way for one dancer to touch another or a move that could happen between them, I am shocked—when I insert myself to demonstrate—that I can’t actually do it.

In fact I am astonished.

I think this must be what a phantom limb is like. The feeling is more real that reality. I am not sad or confused. I try to savor the experience. And who knows, maybe I did it after all.